With Picture of Large Plume of Smoke from Taj Hotel, S Jaishankar Asks India to 'Never Forget' 26/11

Posting an image of the front dome of Taj Mahal Palace hotel encapsulated with a large plume of smoke, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday tweeted a reminder — “Never forget”.

It has been 13 years since ten young men stormed into Mumbai on November 26, 2008 by the sea route and opened fire indiscriminately at multiple places, killing 166 people, including 18 security personnel, and injuring several others, besides damaging property worth crores.

Congress leader Manish Tewari has criticised the party-led UPA government for its response to the 26/11 Mumbai attack, suggesting India should have taken action against Pakistan since “restraint is not a sign of strength”, remarks that put the opposition party in an awkward situation for the second time this month after Salman Khurshid’s Hindutva criticism.

As a row broke out on Tuesday over Tewari’s views in his new book that India should have actioned a “kinetic response” in the days after the November 2008 Mumbai attack, the BJP hit out at the Congress and alleged that the UPA-I government put national security at stake by not responding strongly. “There comes a time when actions must speak louder than words,” Tewari said.

Tewari, who was the national spokesperson at the time of the Mumbai attack, also faced criticism from within the Congress with party leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury saying the former union minister should have raised the matter when he was in the government. Tewari became a minister in the UPA-II government. UPA was in power for two consecutive five-year terms from 2004.

In his book “10 Flashpoints: 20 years” that is set to be released on December 2, Tewari looks back at the security situations that have impacted India in the last two decades. Tewari is a member of the ‘Group of 23’ leaders who had written to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi seeking organisational overhaul and elections for every post in the party.

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